MONOMYTH CYCLE IN A JOURNEY FOR QUEST IN AFRICAN LITERATURE: FLORENCE MBAYA’S A JOURNEY WITHIN
By Peter K’ouma
Koumapeter89@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to in a deeper perspective give analysis of the novel A Journey Within, its secondary analysis as well as its cross-textual relationship with other texts of African origin.
It will also attempt to integrate the author’s main objective, which is to show the struggle of human spirit in its attempt to acquire its desires and as well knit it in relation to self-identity, self-actualization and self-discoveries. In addition, it will also show how the author, Florence Mbaya, uses old tale format, monomyth cycle in a journey for quest in African literature.
The first section gives basic information about the author, a review of the primary text, followed by a discussion on the secondary review of the text as well as stylistic features that Mbaya has incorporated in her work to meet the aesthetic threshold in furthering her ideologies
AUTHOR'S BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Florence Mbaya was born in 1958 in Western Kenya. She went to Kaimosi Girls School for
her O Level education, before joining Mukumu Girls for her A Levels studies. She then
proceeded to the University of Nairobi, where she did her Bachelors of degree in Political Science and Literature.
After college, she taught in a few secondary schools. Married to a diplomat, she has travelled widely and has passionately involved in the world of charity works and Women Leadership across the world. A Journey Within is her first novel.
A REVIEW OF THE PRIMARY TEXT
A Journey Within is a novel by Kenyan author Florence Mbaya. The storyline revolves around the career life of the leading character in the novel – Monika Saliku. At the beginning of the novel, Monika appears as a fresh graduate hopeful of acquiring a job within the city. On the contrary she lands a job in a remote part of the country. She leaves behind friends such as Stella (her former college mate and best friend) and family such as Miriam (her sister). Having to settle for a career she dislikes (teaching) turns out as the opportunity she needed to have the chance of self discovery.
As the title of the novel suggests, the novel focuses on Monika’s’ journey of self-discovery and insight. On arrival at Kostas Secondary school following her posting, she receives a cold welcome from most of the fellow teachers, among them Max, a male teacher at Kostas Secondary School and later on her lover. Monika and Max later fall in love and start preparing for marriage and movement to Nairobi towards the end of the novel.
Mr. Mulandi is the head-teacher of Kostas Secondary School and falls in love with Monika as soon as she arrives at Kostas. What follows is a silent struggle to between Mulandi and Max, each aspiring to win over Monikas’ heart. In the end, Monika makes up her mind and opts for with Max, after learning of Mr. Mulandis’ undisclosed and scandalous past. She continues communicating with friends and family in Nairobi through writing of letters. On a particular visit to Nairobi during holidays, she finds Stella (her best friend) having settled in marriage and already having delivered a baby.
As Monika settles down at Kostas she encounters different challenges, which lead to her maturity as time progresses. She goes on to lead the schools’ drama club into victory at the national level, after having experienced defeat a year before. By the end of her third year at Kostas Secondary School, Monika comes forth, through the author as a more mature and positive lady in facing the challenges that face her. She is also seen as coming to terms with almost everyone she had not gotten along with at the beginning of her teaching activities. Monika further impacts positively everyone around the school at Kostas. The faculty at Kostas Secondary school laments and feels robbed on an invaluable member, by her departure after her three-year period of service in the school comes to an end.
It eventually turns out that Monika has developed a liking for teaching, and considers it for a career after all. As Monika heads for Nairobi from Kostas, her good performance as a teacher and drama leader precedes her, where a number of school heads in Nairobi would like to have her on board as a member of staff in their schools. She is also pregnant by Max, who rejoices at the thought of becoming a father. The novel comes to an end with much hope being spelt out with regards to Monika’s’ future and career.
A REVIEW OF THE SECONDARY TEXT
When heroes in works of literature set out to symbolic journeys, they never come back as they went. In the process, they experience rebirth in their symbolic journeys or womb, in their quest for good. They return home with the elixir, more mature in reasoning and often victorious in their quest.
Florence Mbaya must have had Mongo Betty’s Mission To Kala and Amos Tutuola’s Palmwine Drinkard in mind while writing A Journey Within. In both texts, the authors take their hero characters to significant journeys that would completely change their mind set about various aspects of life. In Mission To Kala, Jean Marie Menza’s journey to Kala opens up his eyes about the corrupted French education, a system that only serves to alienate him from his native people, culture. He comes back with a lot of insight about the abandoned past that the French education (assimilation) has denied him. In Palmwine Drinkard, the drunkard sets out in a journey of human transformation to perfection. At the end, he has learnt from other worlds on how man should live. It’s a symbolic representation of how man can transform his world. Other critics, on the same note, view him in terms of Africa which has to venture selflessly to gain her economic and social freedom and solutions to her problems.
Similarly, Florence Mbaya addresses transformation in our limited capacities. When we move to other worlds (following our calls), we acquire other traits that make us better humans. From these worlds, we become full cycle. She has used Monika, an imaginary character and a heroine, who has to move to Kostas, a remote nomad land when she is posted by the Commission of public services after her university education as a secondary school teacher.
Mbaya has developed Monika following the monomyth structure. Mbaya, just like the ancient Greek writers of adventurous stories, has adopted the three key steps in the monomyth structure. We see the initial action stage, in which the call to adventure and refusal is observed. After she receives her appointment letter, Monika protests, curses and becomes sully. She is unable to come into terms with the reality of joining the teaching profession and to make it worse, in a school located in the middle of nowhere. Negative attitude towards particular professions, especially those viewed as inferior ones, is a major issue among graduates. It becomes a stumbling block on their paths to career development. Monika thinks she is better off in an office of her own and not as a teacher. She looks at teaching as a job dotted with chalk and duster, maps and nicknames. Her vision of developing teaching to be part of her as a career is obscured. To further the plot, the author has molded Monika for an acceptance to venture out and find out what teaching has for her. For heroine is journey to self-discoveries, ability to make decisions that are daring with no one’s influence always mark their first breakthrough. Monika agrees and convinces herself that she is going to give teaching a chance.
The monomyth structure has initiation as the second stage. The heroine crosses the threshold and sets out to encounter danger and conflicts. Monika meets her first role on her journey to Kostas town. She has to play the nurse to the emaciated child who has become weary on his mother’s lap during the long and tiring journey. Monika, among strangers who speak a language she doesn’t understand, takes her part and revives the little child by washing his head and quenching his thirst using the bottled water she carried. Serving a stranger in the bus becomes her first test, to realize what lies down her human heart.
She then meets the shock of being a profession drifter. No one is ready to help the inexperienced teacher. Mwendwa, a colleague, argues out that his job is to teach the students and not to coach the untrained teachers. She finds Kisura very stubborn to help her with the drawing of schemes of work. She has to take on a resolution. All the changes she wants to see must come from her. She has to give up her hubris and create a change. She feels all the dreams she had when she gets a job- dressing up, owning a house, learn to furnish and decorate, planning on how and who to spend the vacations and weekends, and family are all burnt up. The dreams are no more. Monika sets to give priorities and lay focus on what she had no experience on. The author uses Max Kisura to offer her solace, when he challenges Monika saying, “education gives you options to enable you to take control of your life” page 63.
Dangers and conflicts keep piling up on the heroine’s path. The Brigades, led by Jomo, Clement and Sudi had sworn to give Monika trouble while she was on duty. When she finds them smoking, she is expected to administer a kind of punishment that will equalize the mistake. She instead takes a guidance and counseling approach, parenthood in teaching, to settle this, a move that does not go down well with Elizabeth, who thinks she is hasty and should take the blame for the students’ misbehavior. As the teacher on duty, Monika argues that she is suppose to guide and not to police the students. Taking parenthood approach in handling indiscipline cases in school must be viewed as a big step towards maturity and ability to handle situations.
Social challenge presents itself in form of love relationship. Monika is torn between two men who are both good to her. The biggest test comes when she has to make a choice between Max Kisura and Mr. Mulandi, the principal. The delayed-release strategy helps her choose Max over Mulandi, whom she learns had had a scandalous relationship with a student, Helen, while he was a deputy principal in a school in Migori and have got two daughters out of it. Making such a decision is very crucial to the heroine character as built by Florence Mbaya.
The monomyth cycle is complete when the heroine returns home, different from the way she went. Life is going to be different. The heroine has fled old ways, dangers, fear and she is a changed person. Monika has shown a high sense of responsibility and maturity. Managing to conquer her fear on love and relationship and choosing a young ambitious Kisura is a sign of this. She has learnt to realize that profession is not in-born, but what one makes out of it through attitude and dedication. Through this, she has changed many people, as observed by Mr.Mulandi at the end, “You helped put this school on the national map (The Award of The Year’s Best New Entry) even while you were crying out loud about not being cut out for teaching. You rescued lost souls like myself, rehabilitated wayward student like Jomo…….. I believe that you discovered, the hard way perhaps, that teaching is much more than just lesson plans, roll-calls and map reading” page 179. A different character has been created in the heroine as she returns back home, from her quest.
Florence Mbaya has symbolically used Monika’s pregnancy to show the newness in her. The pregnancy is acquired during this transformational journey, therefore symbolizes the newness in the heroine. It is also a sign of hope of new things to be experienced by the heroine after her successful quest.
Mzee Ibrahima, similarly is a sign of hope that the author has installed in A Journey Within, for the Kostas community. His presence helps balance the life of both Monika and the residents. He is a sign of service to the helpless. Just like the students of Kostas secondary school had the thirst to be quenched by Monika, so were Mzee Ibrahima’s provisions to the residents of Kostas community.
The physical journey that Monika had on her first day to Kostas, and the hardships experienced within are symbols of the personal journey of maturity she had to undergo later while in Kostas.
Florence Mbaya uses third person narrative voice in A journey Within. The omniscient narrator technique has enabled her to narrate and portray the various characters and events in her story with a lot of ease. This enables the reader to get into the mind of the heroine, Monika, and deduce her growth rate, frustrations, opinions and happy moments. It also helps the author to develop and navigate other characters in the text and brings out their best.
She has also used a simple language that is jargon free and could be understood by people of all education levels.
CONCLUSION
It is worth concluding that journey motif is an element that is still applicable in the modern African literature and it is possible to use monomyth structure in highlighting issues in the post-modern society through aesthetics and beauty as knitted by Mbaya.
It is also possible noting that Florence Mbaya has achieved her objecting of trying to show how the human spirit can overcome challenges to acquire its desires. She has showcased how ones maturity with regards to their outlook in life contributed by overcoming these insurmountable odds
REFERENCES
Florence Mbaya, A Journey Within,
East Africa Education Publishers. 2008,Nairobi.
Mongo Betty, Mission To Kala
Amos Tutuola, Palmwine Drinkard.
The author is a graduate of English and Literature,
University of Nairobi
By Peter K’ouma
Koumapeter89@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to in a deeper perspective give analysis of the novel A Journey Within, its secondary analysis as well as its cross-textual relationship with other texts of African origin.
It will also attempt to integrate the author’s main objective, which is to show the struggle of human spirit in its attempt to acquire its desires and as well knit it in relation to self-identity, self-actualization and self-discoveries. In addition, it will also show how the author, Florence Mbaya, uses old tale format, monomyth cycle in a journey for quest in African literature.
The first section gives basic information about the author, a review of the primary text, followed by a discussion on the secondary review of the text as well as stylistic features that Mbaya has incorporated in her work to meet the aesthetic threshold in furthering her ideologies
AUTHOR'S BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Florence Mbaya was born in 1958 in Western Kenya. She went to Kaimosi Girls School for
her O Level education, before joining Mukumu Girls for her A Levels studies. She then
proceeded to the University of Nairobi, where she did her Bachelors of degree in Political Science and Literature.
After college, she taught in a few secondary schools. Married to a diplomat, she has travelled widely and has passionately involved in the world of charity works and Women Leadership across the world. A Journey Within is her first novel.
A REVIEW OF THE PRIMARY TEXT
A Journey Within is a novel by Kenyan author Florence Mbaya. The storyline revolves around the career life of the leading character in the novel – Monika Saliku. At the beginning of the novel, Monika appears as a fresh graduate hopeful of acquiring a job within the city. On the contrary she lands a job in a remote part of the country. She leaves behind friends such as Stella (her former college mate and best friend) and family such as Miriam (her sister). Having to settle for a career she dislikes (teaching) turns out as the opportunity she needed to have the chance of self discovery.
As the title of the novel suggests, the novel focuses on Monika’s’ journey of self-discovery and insight. On arrival at Kostas Secondary school following her posting, she receives a cold welcome from most of the fellow teachers, among them Max, a male teacher at Kostas Secondary School and later on her lover. Monika and Max later fall in love and start preparing for marriage and movement to Nairobi towards the end of the novel.
Mr. Mulandi is the head-teacher of Kostas Secondary School and falls in love with Monika as soon as she arrives at Kostas. What follows is a silent struggle to between Mulandi and Max, each aspiring to win over Monikas’ heart. In the end, Monika makes up her mind and opts for with Max, after learning of Mr. Mulandis’ undisclosed and scandalous past. She continues communicating with friends and family in Nairobi through writing of letters. On a particular visit to Nairobi during holidays, she finds Stella (her best friend) having settled in marriage and already having delivered a baby.
As Monika settles down at Kostas she encounters different challenges, which lead to her maturity as time progresses. She goes on to lead the schools’ drama club into victory at the national level, after having experienced defeat a year before. By the end of her third year at Kostas Secondary School, Monika comes forth, through the author as a more mature and positive lady in facing the challenges that face her. She is also seen as coming to terms with almost everyone she had not gotten along with at the beginning of her teaching activities. Monika further impacts positively everyone around the school at Kostas. The faculty at Kostas Secondary school laments and feels robbed on an invaluable member, by her departure after her three-year period of service in the school comes to an end.
It eventually turns out that Monika has developed a liking for teaching, and considers it for a career after all. As Monika heads for Nairobi from Kostas, her good performance as a teacher and drama leader precedes her, where a number of school heads in Nairobi would like to have her on board as a member of staff in their schools. She is also pregnant by Max, who rejoices at the thought of becoming a father. The novel comes to an end with much hope being spelt out with regards to Monika’s’ future and career.
A REVIEW OF THE SECONDARY TEXT
When heroes in works of literature set out to symbolic journeys, they never come back as they went. In the process, they experience rebirth in their symbolic journeys or womb, in their quest for good. They return home with the elixir, more mature in reasoning and often victorious in their quest.
Florence Mbaya must have had Mongo Betty’s Mission To Kala and Amos Tutuola’s Palmwine Drinkard in mind while writing A Journey Within. In both texts, the authors take their hero characters to significant journeys that would completely change their mind set about various aspects of life. In Mission To Kala, Jean Marie Menza’s journey to Kala opens up his eyes about the corrupted French education, a system that only serves to alienate him from his native people, culture. He comes back with a lot of insight about the abandoned past that the French education (assimilation) has denied him. In Palmwine Drinkard, the drunkard sets out in a journey of human transformation to perfection. At the end, he has learnt from other worlds on how man should live. It’s a symbolic representation of how man can transform his world. Other critics, on the same note, view him in terms of Africa which has to venture selflessly to gain her economic and social freedom and solutions to her problems.
Similarly, Florence Mbaya addresses transformation in our limited capacities. When we move to other worlds (following our calls), we acquire other traits that make us better humans. From these worlds, we become full cycle. She has used Monika, an imaginary character and a heroine, who has to move to Kostas, a remote nomad land when she is posted by the Commission of public services after her university education as a secondary school teacher.
Mbaya has developed Monika following the monomyth structure. Mbaya, just like the ancient Greek writers of adventurous stories, has adopted the three key steps in the monomyth structure. We see the initial action stage, in which the call to adventure and refusal is observed. After she receives her appointment letter, Monika protests, curses and becomes sully. She is unable to come into terms with the reality of joining the teaching profession and to make it worse, in a school located in the middle of nowhere. Negative attitude towards particular professions, especially those viewed as inferior ones, is a major issue among graduates. It becomes a stumbling block on their paths to career development. Monika thinks she is better off in an office of her own and not as a teacher. She looks at teaching as a job dotted with chalk and duster, maps and nicknames. Her vision of developing teaching to be part of her as a career is obscured. To further the plot, the author has molded Monika for an acceptance to venture out and find out what teaching has for her. For heroine is journey to self-discoveries, ability to make decisions that are daring with no one’s influence always mark their first breakthrough. Monika agrees and convinces herself that she is going to give teaching a chance.
The monomyth structure has initiation as the second stage. The heroine crosses the threshold and sets out to encounter danger and conflicts. Monika meets her first role on her journey to Kostas town. She has to play the nurse to the emaciated child who has become weary on his mother’s lap during the long and tiring journey. Monika, among strangers who speak a language she doesn’t understand, takes her part and revives the little child by washing his head and quenching his thirst using the bottled water she carried. Serving a stranger in the bus becomes her first test, to realize what lies down her human heart.
She then meets the shock of being a profession drifter. No one is ready to help the inexperienced teacher. Mwendwa, a colleague, argues out that his job is to teach the students and not to coach the untrained teachers. She finds Kisura very stubborn to help her with the drawing of schemes of work. She has to take on a resolution. All the changes she wants to see must come from her. She has to give up her hubris and create a change. She feels all the dreams she had when she gets a job- dressing up, owning a house, learn to furnish and decorate, planning on how and who to spend the vacations and weekends, and family are all burnt up. The dreams are no more. Monika sets to give priorities and lay focus on what she had no experience on. The author uses Max Kisura to offer her solace, when he challenges Monika saying, “education gives you options to enable you to take control of your life” page 63.
Dangers and conflicts keep piling up on the heroine’s path. The Brigades, led by Jomo, Clement and Sudi had sworn to give Monika trouble while she was on duty. When she finds them smoking, she is expected to administer a kind of punishment that will equalize the mistake. She instead takes a guidance and counseling approach, parenthood in teaching, to settle this, a move that does not go down well with Elizabeth, who thinks she is hasty and should take the blame for the students’ misbehavior. As the teacher on duty, Monika argues that she is suppose to guide and not to police the students. Taking parenthood approach in handling indiscipline cases in school must be viewed as a big step towards maturity and ability to handle situations.
Social challenge presents itself in form of love relationship. Monika is torn between two men who are both good to her. The biggest test comes when she has to make a choice between Max Kisura and Mr. Mulandi, the principal. The delayed-release strategy helps her choose Max over Mulandi, whom she learns had had a scandalous relationship with a student, Helen, while he was a deputy principal in a school in Migori and have got two daughters out of it. Making such a decision is very crucial to the heroine character as built by Florence Mbaya.
The monomyth cycle is complete when the heroine returns home, different from the way she went. Life is going to be different. The heroine has fled old ways, dangers, fear and she is a changed person. Monika has shown a high sense of responsibility and maturity. Managing to conquer her fear on love and relationship and choosing a young ambitious Kisura is a sign of this. She has learnt to realize that profession is not in-born, but what one makes out of it through attitude and dedication. Through this, she has changed many people, as observed by Mr.Mulandi at the end, “You helped put this school on the national map (The Award of The Year’s Best New Entry) even while you were crying out loud about not being cut out for teaching. You rescued lost souls like myself, rehabilitated wayward student like Jomo…….. I believe that you discovered, the hard way perhaps, that teaching is much more than just lesson plans, roll-calls and map reading” page 179. A different character has been created in the heroine as she returns back home, from her quest.
Florence Mbaya has symbolically used Monika’s pregnancy to show the newness in her. The pregnancy is acquired during this transformational journey, therefore symbolizes the newness in the heroine. It is also a sign of hope of new things to be experienced by the heroine after her successful quest.
Mzee Ibrahima, similarly is a sign of hope that the author has installed in A Journey Within, for the Kostas community. His presence helps balance the life of both Monika and the residents. He is a sign of service to the helpless. Just like the students of Kostas secondary school had the thirst to be quenched by Monika, so were Mzee Ibrahima’s provisions to the residents of Kostas community.
The physical journey that Monika had on her first day to Kostas, and the hardships experienced within are symbols of the personal journey of maturity she had to undergo later while in Kostas.
Florence Mbaya uses third person narrative voice in A journey Within. The omniscient narrator technique has enabled her to narrate and portray the various characters and events in her story with a lot of ease. This enables the reader to get into the mind of the heroine, Monika, and deduce her growth rate, frustrations, opinions and happy moments. It also helps the author to develop and navigate other characters in the text and brings out their best.
She has also used a simple language that is jargon free and could be understood by people of all education levels.
CONCLUSION
It is worth concluding that journey motif is an element that is still applicable in the modern African literature and it is possible to use monomyth structure in highlighting issues in the post-modern society through aesthetics and beauty as knitted by Mbaya.
It is also possible noting that Florence Mbaya has achieved her objecting of trying to show how the human spirit can overcome challenges to acquire its desires. She has showcased how ones maturity with regards to their outlook in life contributed by overcoming these insurmountable odds
REFERENCES
Florence Mbaya, A Journey Within,
East Africa Education Publishers. 2008,Nairobi.
Mongo Betty, Mission To Kala
Amos Tutuola, Palmwine Drinkard.
The author is a graduate of English and Literature,
University of Nairobi
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